1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an image forming apparatus with power consumption control. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for controlling power consumption according to the level of ambient brightness, and further relates to a power conservation mechanism for an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, electrostatic image forming apparatuses such as laser beam printers and facsimile machines maintain fusing temperatures that are nearly actual printing temperatures. This occurs even in a standby mode. Thus, an image forming apparatus may take more time to set up for printing than to perform the actual printing itself. Such an image forming apparatus is heated to a prescribed temperature during the standby mode. This causes unnecessary power consumption. For this reason, various power conservation mechanisms have been proposed in order to solve this problem. One attempt to solve this problem is a power management system as disclosed in the Korean Patent Application No. 93-9498 filed by the same assignee as in the present invention. Among exemplars of the related arts is Ichikawa (U.S. Pat. No. 5,191,362, Electrophotographic Printing Apparatus With A Control System Responsive To Temperature Changes, Mar. 2, 1993) discussing an electrophotographic printing apparatus having a photosensitive member electrified in a printing operation, wherein unnecessary electrical charges are removed from the photosensitive member before the next printing operation. Akiyama et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,134,427, Image Forming Apparatus, Jul. 28, 1992) discusses a recording apparatus having a recording unit for recording information onto a recording medium, a feeder for feeding the recording medium to the recording unit, a detector between the recording unit and the feeder for detecting the recording medium being fed, and a controller for inhibiting the recording operation of the recording unit when the detector detects the recording medium before the elapse of a predetermined period of time from the start of the feeding operation of the feeder. Yoshida et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,284, Image Forming Apparatus And Method Of Controlling Output Of Semiconductor Laser, Oct. 30, 1990) discusses an image forming apparatus having a control device for controlling an optical output of a semiconductor laser. An operation of controlling the optical output is started with a timing before an incoming signal which indicates an effective image region in a sub scanning direction of a photosensitive body and responsive to a timing signal having a predetermined period. Manabe et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,212, Image Recorder, Oct. 30, 1990) discusses an image recorder of the kind using an electrophotographic procedure, which is capable of producing a clear-cut image having predetermined line width at all times with no regard to its operating conditions and ambient conditions by causing the line width of an image into coincidence with a predetermined reference width.